Long Covid - The TV Guide

Despite testing negative for the virus, I continued to feel unwell. When trying to do things, I was overcome with breathlessness and exhaustion. It was extremely limiting and made me very depressed. For five awful weeks I feared I had Long Covid. Then my breathing began to improve. I found I could do easy walks without needing to use my inhaler. I was even able to try harder walks and also easy cycle rides. I’m not fully back to normal, but I am well on the way. I don’t really know what led to my improvement. But I’m very grateful. Whilst in the thrall of the virus, I spent a lot of time watching TV drama. So here are my highlights.

My favourite TV channel is Talking Pictures TV. It’s on Freeview and Freesat and shows predominantly old films: British, European and American. I was tipped off about it by John Cooper Clarke, the Bard of Salford. Not personally, it was via an interview. He confessed that he hardly watched any other channel since he’d found TPTV. I feel similarly about it. My favourite programme on TPTV is Maigret. Every Tuesday at 21.05 they show a film of one of the novels, made for French TV in the 1990’s. The production values are good, the realization is accurate, the atmosphere is authentic and the lead actor is perfect. His name is Bruno Cremer and I think he’s the best Maigret I’ve seen. Rupert Davies in the 1960’s was quite good, but the production values were poor. Michael Gambon was fairly good too. Then came Rowan Atkinson. He was terrible: hollow, wooden and colourless. Georges Simenon describes the character as imposing and powerfully built. And Cremer fits the bill.

Other than that, I spent plenty of time on DVD’s. My favourite was ‘Pennies From Heaven’, by Dennis Potter, first broadcast in spring 1978 on the BBC (I missed it because I was working in Italy). I was astonished by how fresh, powerful and ambitious the six plays are. Using popular song and dance to explore and ironically comment on the motivations of the characters works so wonderfully well. The use of locations that I know from my childhood in Gloucester and the Forest of Dean is very evocative too. I think this is Dennis Potter's best work. The leads are all terrific: Bob Hoskins, Gemma Craven and Cheryl Campbell. The storyline involves deception, blackmail, rape, murder and prostitution, set amid the poverty of 1930’s Britain. All this darkness presents as a sub-text to the escapism of the popular songs of the time.This tension fuels the conflict (between fantasy and reality, desire and repression, delusion and inarticulacy) that drives the main characters and the narrative. ‘Pennies From Heaven’ gained audiences of 12 million when it was first shown on the BBC. Seeing it for the first time 45 years later, underlines just how safe, predictable and dull TV drama has become on the mainstream channels these days.